Local Photographer Goes From 'Mamarazzi' to Portrait Biz

As a photographer who specializes with children and babies, New Lenox resident Christine Navarre says her job is about capturing the lifestyle and emotions of her subjects.

“I'm not so much an old-school kind of photographer where it's a portrait-like setting," she said. "I really want to capture the spirit of the kids. What better way to do that then in their own home or in their own environment.”

That means no studio; she comes to you for her business, Christine Navarre Photography. She said first-time moms espeically can be especially stressed out, which in turn the child picks up on.

“So I've found that it's just more comfortable for everybody to just come to them so I can really capture their spirit," Navarre said.

If you've sat through a traditional portrait session, what Navarre says makes sense. Just getting the kids to the studio can be a challenge, and once there the stress continues of being in an unknown environment with certain expectations. Instead, Navarre brings her equipment and her casual, calming demeanor to her subjects. The result is readily apparent in her photographs.

“The style in photography is much different than it used to be," she said. "It's not so much the, 'You stand here and I tweak you.' It's more of a lifestyle portrait. You want to capture the spirit of the kids. You want it to be a great photo, you want it to be technically correct, but I would rather get the emotion than it be perfect.”

Although the technical poses might not be as important, she learned a lot of the technical details of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she majored in fine arts (she “went there as a painter and left as a photographer"). Of course, at the time, she was using traditional film and darkroom developing. It took almost two years of self study to re-learn a lot of new techniques using today's digital cameras.

Navarre is a lifelong New Lenox resident with a husband who's a plumber and two children, an 8-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son. She calls her kids her best models, especially “when their faces are all squished up and they're acting like kids.”

It was her role as a “mamarazzi” (the parent who tries to capture everything the kids do) that sent her in this direction. “They're the ones that inspired me to do this because they grow up so fast.”

Teaching and Sharing with Others

Navarre joined a Facebook group of more than a dozen other similar photographers who get together once a month to share ideas and inspiration. As the group grew to more than 40 members, several approached her simultaneously for advice and other help. She readily agreed.

“My goal with them is to better the industry, keep the standards much higher," Navarre said. "You can't just pick up a camera and expect to make a living off of it. We call those the 'shoot and burners': the people that get a camera, they go to a photo shoot, give (the client) a CD and call it a day.”

So she assembles these three women once a week to discuss various aspects of photography, including critiques. They all started in January and Navarre said that their skills have improved "tremendously."

Her own growth has resulted in clients from downtown Chicago to St. Charles. She recently got a call from Indiana but declined; she says that she has enough work closer to home that keeps her plenty busy while still allowing for family time. And that was what brought her into this in the first place: the flexibility to make her own schedule around her family. It's why she doesn't do weddings.

Instead she sticks with a genre where she is more comfortable, which is her advice to her clients: Be comfortable.

“For the parents, what I really want to tell them all, is to relax and just let the kids be kids. A lot of the parents are worried that the kids aren't going to be right. Let the kids be kids and let them go, let them be rotten—I can handle it. I think everybody just needs to relax a little bit.”

Christine Navarre Photography

• Phone: 815-603-7189
• Website: See photos and more on her website.
• Facebook: Click here to see her business' fan page.